St Catherine is said to have died in c 307 but the historical truth is that she may never have existed. Certainly, the Catholic Church came to this conclusion in the 17th century and finally removed her festival on November 25th from the calendar of saints' days in 1969. In the Calendarum Romanum of that year it says:

In AD 800, when the eruption of Muslims out of the Arabian deserts first shook Europe, we hear that the saint appeared in a dream to a monk and explained that she was buried at the Monastery of Mount Sinai. As a result her body was miraculously recovered and part of it now lies in a tomb by the high altar in the church there.

The monastery was sold to the Strangways family, who still own Abbotsbury, by King Henry VIII in 1530. Most of the buildings were pulled down for their materials and sold.